Dust-up over Cleaning Fairy's surprise visit, big bill

The Cleaning Fairy comes into your home, cleans and tidies, and leaves. But for one American woman, the dream became a nightmare when the fairy left a bill for $75.

Police in Ohio charged Susan Warren, 53, of Cleveland, with attempted burglary for entering the home of Sherry Bush.

In a case reminiscent of the obsessive cleaning of Friends character Monica Geller, who bought cleaning equipment to wash the cars in the street, Warren washed some coffee cups left out, vacuumed, took out the rubbish and dusted in Ms Bush's home.

But Warren also left a note on a napkin with her name, phone number - and the bill, reported US television station WKYC.

"$75 I was here to clean," read the note.

Warren told police that she was bored and "wanted something to do".

Ms Bush was not home at the time and her daughter was asleep upstairs. When her daughter, 18, mentioned the cleaner, Ms Bush said she thought a cleaner had mistakenly come to the house.

"I think our jaws just dropped to the ground," Ms Bush said. "I said, what happened, did you get the wrong house?

“She said, 'no, I do this all the time.' I said, what do you mean? She said, 'I just stop and clean your house'."

But Ms Bush joked that she had been ripped off.

“Now that we've seen the job that she did, it was like whoa, $75? $15 maybe,” she laughed.

Warren claims to own a cleaning business and has been convicted previously of a similar crime in a nearby area.

She pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to 20 hours of community service and placed on probation for a year.

There is no word as to whether the community service involves any kind of cleaning.

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